Convert R Object to a Descriptive String — as_short

This function is intended to be convert any R object to a short descriptive string, e.g. in base::print() functions.

The following rules apply:

if x is atomic() with length 0 or 1: printed as-is.
if x is atomic() with length greater than 1, x is collapsed with ",", and the resulting string is truncated to trunc_width characters.
if x is an expression: converted to character.
Otherwise: the class is printed.

If x is a list, the above rules are applied (non-recursively) to its elements.

Usage

as_short_string(x, width = 30L, num_format = "%.4g")

x: (any)
Arbitrary object.
width: (integer(1))
Truncate strings to width width.
num_format: (character(1))
Used to format numerical scalars via base::sprintf().

(character(1)).

as_short_string(list(a = 1, b = NULL, "foo", c = 1:10))
#> [1] "a=1, b=<NULL>, <unnamed>=foo, c=1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10"